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Showing posts from July, 2017

Being The Church

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30july3017_sermon_naz.m4a Download File 30july2107_sermon_os.m4a Download File 30july3017_sermon_em_ed.m4a Download File Here is my sermon text for Sunday, July 30 on 2 Corinthians 8:1-15, as well as audio files from each three churches. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ . I spent last week in the Twin Cities, attending two continuing education events put on by Luther Seminary. One was focused on the lessons we will use over the next year. The other is one of a series of workshops they put on. The series is called “Rethinking,” and its goal is to look at different things that churches and the Church have done, and, well, rethink them. Is what we are doing working? Is what we are doing the best way to do this? Should we still be doing this? Over the past 5 years, I have attended Rethinking conferences on Rethinking Evangelism, Rethinking Faith Formation, Rethinking Stewa

The Calling of Ananias

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This is my sermon for two different weeks. I first gave it on June 18 for the Withee Days Community Worship Service, and then gave it on July 23 at Our Savior's in Greenwood. Two of the communities I serve have Summer festivals, and the most of the churches (including 2 of mine) in those communities cancel their Sunday services so people can worship as a community. I was asked to lead worship at Withee Days, and did that. Two of the churches cancelled services for the Owen Junior Fair, leaving me to only have one service on a Sunday, and since no one from Greenwood heard this message in Withee, I used it again. The text is Acts 9:1-19. Recordings of the two sermons are below. The photo of my Ananias is because he is adorable. 18june2017_withee_days_msg_ed.m4a Download File 23july2017_OS Sermon_ed.m4a Download File This is my favorite story from Bible because it echoes how I feel called to ministry. I love it so

An Important Verse is Right After The Most Well Known Verse

  This is an article I wrote for a local newspaper's Religion column. I think one of the most important verses in the entire Bible comes right after one of he most well known. In the third chapter of John’s Gospel, a leader of the Temple, Nicodemus came to see Jesus at night. Nicodemus wanted to understand what Jesus was teaching. After their discussion about how people must be born from above, Jesus explained what his mission on Earth is. 16   (Jesus said,) “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17  Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and

Reconciled So We Can Reconcile

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Nazareth_sermon_16july2017_ed.m4a Download File OurSaviors_sermon_16july2017_ed.m4a Download File Emmanuel_sermon_16july2017_ed.m4a Download File This is my sermon manuscript from July 16, based on the text of 2Corinthians 5.11-21. Recordings of each sermon for this Sunday may be downloaded above. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. When you think of reconciliation, you probably think about your checking account, and the joys of trying to get it to balance. The frustrating problems that come with trying to reconcile is that there has been a difference in understanding. It could be the amount that you recorded is different than what the bank recorded because a number was misinterpreted. It could be that an additional event occurred that not everybody was made aware of, and now that it has come to light, there are hurt feelings. It could

What Is On Top of the Table?

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Sermon_9july2017 Emm_ed.m4a Download File This is my manuscript for my July 9 sermon on "How do we speak about the unseen God?" with the lesson coming from 2Corinthians 4:16-5:10? Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I don’t know if many of you know this, but I have a dog. Ananias is a three year old Olde English Bulldogge. When he stands, he is not quite knee-high to me, and when he sits, he can put his massive, drooling head on my lap. There are several reasons that I wanted a bulldog, but one of the major reasons was his size. I have a lot of friends who have bigger dogs, Labs & German Shepherds, and even bigger dogs. I’ve seen what those dogs can do. They can take food off of counters and tables. Ananias can get to stuff on the coffee table, which is how he destroyed a TV remote, but he can’t get to an end table or a table in the kitchen or dining room. In fact, he can’t even see what is on them. While he will

How Do We Speak About Jesus?

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os_sermon_2july2017_ed.m4a Download File This is my written text for my sermon on July 2, based on the text of 2Corinthians 4:1-15, as part of our series on 2Corinthians and how we can talk about our faith. How do you talk about the importance of Jesus Christ in your life? DO YOU talk about the importance of Jesus Christ in your life? I guess the reason that I answered the call to ministry is because I felt the need to talk about the importance of Jesus Christ in my life. I wanted, actually, I think I needed, to tell others that you don’t have to try to do it all by yourself. In fact, thinking you can do it by yourself, that you can do it by yourself is the second most self-destructive thing in the world. The most destructive is that you are not loved, but that tends to come from thinking you can do it by yourself and realizing you’ve failed. I believe it is easiest to talk about Jesus to those who have hit a bottom in their lives. They may not have hit

Some News and Some Notes from July

This is my Pastor’s Ponderings article for the ONE in Christ July newsletter. I have a series of little notes as we enter into July: First, I want to thank Vita Gosse and Joan Turnquist for their hard work for the two Vacation Bible Schools we sponsored this summer. Most of us don’t realize the amount of effort these two ladies put into creating this week of learning for young people. They are a blessing to our churches; please thank them for all that they do. Second , thank you for getting behind the cause of our VBS this year, Heifer Internationals Irrigation Pumps. In her article, Vita touched on a hidden benefit of these pumps. In many communities, getting water for the household is the work of girls. This means they miss school to get water for their family. Providing better irrigation has the added benefit of improving women’s education, which benefits the world. We will have a total of the donations for next month. Third, you may have noticed the newsletter submis

Another Bedtime Bible Story

This is An Article from Ananias for the July 2017 ONE in Christ newsletter. My Big Guy was reading me another Bible story before bedtime. This time it was from John’s Gospel. He said it is at the beginning of chapter 8. Jesus is at the Temple in Jerusalem, and the leaders bring a woman to him. He said that the leaders said the woman had been caught in adultery. I looked at him because I never heard that word before. He said it means to break a real serious promise, the promise people make when they get married. The leaders said that someone doing this would get stones thrown at them; then they asked Jesus what they should do. It was a test. But Jesus didn’t answer. Instead he wrote in the sand. After a while, he stood up and told them who ever hadn’t sinned can throw the first stone. Then all the leaders walked away, leaving Jesus and the woman, and he told her not to sin again. I thought about this for a while. I couldn’t understand adultery, but then I thought about the